


Their Least Favorite Game

by raisedbymoogles



Series: Drunken Conversations [2]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Drinking Games, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisedbymoogles/pseuds/raisedbymoogles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take a shot, then come up with some ridiculous thing people say about your fellow Prime. If there's even a kernel of truth to it, your opponent takes a penalty shot. Repeat until the high-grade is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Least Favorite Game

The two Primes - Prime and a half, if you asked Roddy, which was why nobody did - sat across from each other, in a small room lit only by the array of small cubes of concentrated highgrade on the table between them. Hot Rod reached out and took the closest one, tipping it down his throat in a swift and practiced maneuver. "They say," he said casually, "you sprang, fully formed and programmed, from the head of Primus Himself."

Optimus rumbled. "Hardly true," he demurred, and as Roddy set his empty cube down he picked a full one up and reduced it to an empty state. "They say you are inscribed all over with messages of Primus's favor."

Roddy grinned and spread his arms. "No inscriptions on _this_ paint job." He took another cube and swallowed it down. "They say you tamed the demons of the Underdark, winning the Autobots safe passage through the warrens."

"Not true, though I have killed one or two." Optimus picked up a cube, tilting it gently back and forth contemplatively before drinking it. "They say that at a word from you, the old fountains in Centrax Square started gushing energon after being dry for millenia."

A strangled laugh escaped Hot Rod's vocalizer. "Uh, it wasn't exactly energon," he admitted with an amused grimace. "More like - rust chunks and goo. Does that count?"

"Kernel of truth," Optimus pointed out, gesturing to the still-impressive pile of shot cubes. Hot Rod took the defeat with good grace and a smile, swallowing an extra shot as penalty for Optimus's win.

"Your turn," Optimus reminded him gently when he set the empty down.

"I know, I know. Slag." Hot Rod grabbed another shot from the pile, drinking it down. Optimus made a worried noise, but Roddy's upraised hand forestalled him when he would have gotten up. "Okay. They say you... they say when the Matrix passed to you, the statues of the Guardians in Crystal City started singing."

Optimus gave him a befuddled blink. "I've never heard that."

"I read it in a datatrack when I was a newspark," Hot Rod admitted with a grin.

The admission unbalanced Optimus for a moment. He'd known, of course, that his successor was young, but it was sobering to know that he had already passed into legend by the time Hot Rod was sparked. He shook his head, tried to cover his momentary discomfiture with a smile. "Well, it seems unlikely, but how should I know?" he said, picking up a cube in entirely unnecessary penalty - taking the shot for his fellow Autobot, like he always did. "I wasn't there."

Hot Rod watched him swallow it down in silence, optics just a little too bright. Or maybe it was the room that was dimmer, now that they'd drunk some of their light source. Optimus set the empty down, picked up another and drained it, swallowing a little more of their light. "They say," he said quietly, "that Primus speaks to you. More than any other Prime."

Hot Rod's lips curved. "I've heard a lot of voices from the Matrix, Optimus. None of them have ever been Primus." He reached out, took a cube, toyed with it in silence for a moment. "Yours was the only voice I really cared about, anyway," he admitted.

Optimus dimmed his optics, biting back an apology. Determined, Hot Rod drank his cube and set it aside. "They say you're the greatest Prime who ever lived," he said bluntly.

Optimus blinked, the angle of attack expected but hurting no less for it. "Not even remotely true," he said, and kept his hands folded in front of him as he met Hot Rod's suddenly angry stare.

"You held the line against Megatron. Pushed him back," the younger mech accused. "Kept him from turning Earth into a dead husk of rock and using the energy to turn the whole galaxy into his own little empire. You held the Autobots together when without you they would have fractured. You were our light, always - in our darkest hours. And there've been more of those than you know."

He'd never had his accomplishments flung in his face like that before, and for a moment Optimus floundered in indecision. Hot Rod sensed his weakness and pounced. "If all that is a matter of opinion," he pressed, "then it's still a kernel of truth. Right?"

Optimus lowered his head in surrender. Hot Rod's engine hummed a high note of mingled tension and satisfaction as his elder silently took his penalty shot, lifted it to his mouth, and tipped the glowing liquid down his throat. Only a few cubes left now, their light barely enough to outline the Primes' forms, and Optimus made the room darker still as he drank another shot to begin his next round.

"They say," he said slowly, shaping every word with the exquisite care of the just-slightly-overcharged, "that you are the greatest and best of Primes, and I am not worthy to shine your pedes."

Hot Rod actually leaped out of his seat, or tried to - his equilibrium sensors, struggling to deal with floods of excess energy, failed him and down he went with a graceless clatter of plating, upending his chair in the process. "Who - the _slag_ \- says _that?"_ he demanded from the floor.

Optimus's core compassion could not be denied at that, even at the cost of Hot Rod's pride. He hurried to help the smaller mech up. Roddy groused and squirmed, but his resistance was token at best as Optimus lifted him to his pedes, righted the chair, and settled him down in it with only a brief scan to check for medically-significant damage. And then a slightly more thorough scan, because for all First Aid was less militant about it, his idea of what constituted 'medically significant' erred on the side of caution far more than Ratchet's had.

"Seriously," Hot Rod prodded with a peevish scowl, wriggling under the scrutiny. "Who says that?"

Optimus backed off apologetically, returning to his seat and gathering his thoughts before answering. "In the end," he began, "the best I could do was keep Megatron from winning. I prolonged the war; you ended it."

"Unicron ended it," Hot Rod contradicted flatly.

"Very well, but you made that ending stick." Optimus allowed a flicker of a smile to cross his face. "Under your guardianship, Cybertron went from a dying world to a thriving one. You established peace and economic stability. You integrated those Decepticons who were willing into the larger society with hardly a ripple. You have made trade partners with other species, you have lifted the humans up as a galactic power in their own right - as much as you complain, Roddy, your leadership has been nothing short of exemplary."

Hot Rod was squirming, head down to avoid his elder's gaze; Optimus went in for the final blow with devastating gentleness. "And need I remind you - _Rodimus Prime_ \- that you destroyed Unicron. In our darkest hour, you were our light. You are the fulfillment of my first and only prophecy."

Hot Rod actually tensed, the memory of that day clearly still painful, but he squared his shoulders and faced it like a soldier - Optimus expected no less. "Kernel of truth," he said stubbornly, reaching for his penalty shot. "Just the tiniest, most infinitesimal kernel. You're still mostly full of slag."

Optimus rumbled, amused. "Fair enough," he said, and watched as Hot Rod tossed his shot back.

Four cubes left now. Four violently pink sources of light between Hot Rod and his Prime, between Optimus and his Chosen. Their optics glowed almost as bright with the evidence of their overcharge, with challenge and stubbornness. Optimus nodded meaningfully at the fuel; Hot Rod spent a little time arranging them neatly in a square before taking one and drinking it. But he didn't speak right away; Optimus tilted his head a little in confusion, and Roddy smirked over the empty.

"They say you're amazing in the berth," he said.

Optimus paused, holding his gaze calmly until Hot Rod looked about to squirm or take it back. Without a word, he picked up a cube, drained it, and set it down with a smirk that could match Hot Rod's for promising trouble. Hot Rod's vents audibly kicked on.

Leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, Optimus listened to that whir as he contemplated the last two cubes. The winning conditions for their game were poorly defined, but he was pretty sure that if he couldn't make Hot Rod drink the last shot, he would lose. Slowly, he plucked up the shot on his left and drank it, leaving the last one to glow temptingly between them.

"They say," he said with exaggerated slowness, "you're dating Galvatron."

_Crash-thunk,_ went Hot Rod falling out of his chair again. This time Optimus stayed where he was, cool and calm as Hot Rod cursed and struggled and regained his pedes. The young Prime glared at him, flustered denial tempering to outright defiance; he snatched the last cube off the table and drained it, plunging them at last into darkness.


End file.
